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The Australian Development Gateway (ADG) strives to support members of the development community in their efforts to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region. The site has been created with participation from members of government, private, academia and non-government organisations. User feedback mechanisms have been incorporated to guide future directions of the site. The site is optimised for low bandwidth access to enable the widest participation throughout the Asia Pacific region.

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Surviving disasters and supporting recovery: a guidebook for microfinance institutions (pdf 463 kb)

This guide assists microfinance institutions (MFIs) in assessing the risk of a disaster, their clients' needs, their own institutional capacity to respond and provides guidance for preparation, response and recovery.

This guidebook is rooted in the philosophy that providing services which enable clients to prepare for future crises and mitigate their impacts is a major element of the work MFIs do. For this reason, all MFIs need to ensure that they and their clients take necessary steps to enable them to plan how they will respond to and manage potential natural disasters.

The guide aims to:

- Assist MFIs in defining an institutional strategy for disaster preparedness
- Lay out the steps for assessing the potential risk of disaster, the clients' needs and the institutional capacity to respond
- Offer a variety of recommendations for internal preparedness as well as examples of financial products that could mitigate the impact of disaster on clients
- Provide references to tools and guidelines which institutions may use in rolling out their decided strategies.

The guide addresses the following topics:
1. Assessment of risk
2. Institutional preparedness
3. Client preparedness
4. Emergency response
5. Recovery

 

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